Sheldon's Blog

Thursday, July 23, 2009

So this day happened when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. Sometimes I amaze myself how I can't remember where I put my car keys 10 minutes ago, but can remember events that happened years ago. If any police officers are reading this please don't arrest us and remember we were minors back then, so its our parents fault.

So one sunny summer day in Duncan Arizona. Me, my two older brothers Jay and Clint and two of their good friends Craig and Chris Odell decide to head down to the river. I didn't know what we were going to do and I didn't care, I was just happy hanging out with my older brothers and their cool friends and in Duncan after a while any company is good company. Just to give you an idea of what it was like in Duncan. When someone knocked on our door, excitement would run through our veins, and everyone in the house would immediately stop what they were doing and sprint to get to the door first.

So we go down to the river and we were walking along it and for the most part its not that deep, when all of a sudden we discover this deep hole next to this big oak tree which was half way in the water and half out. My brothers and company dive down in it and discover catfish there. So couple of the guys run back to the house and grab our fish nets and some swimming goggles. The goggles were those full face ugly looking goggles. Anyways, they get the nets and the goggles and its on.

Only a couple guys would dive in at a time and the other two guys would wait their turn. I wasn't much help really with the diving and netting. They were pulling out some big catfish. So while they were doing their thing I go up stream a little way and decide I'm going to build up a sand bank from one end of the river shore to the other just in case a fish decides to make a run for it. It wasn't a dam per say but it was more of a bank that I had built up under the water to make it more shallow than it already was.

Not 10 minutes later after I had finished my great sand bank in the water a fish tried to make a run for it downstream!! and what do you know it got caught on top of my sand bank!! I had to act fast or else it would of wiggled its way free. I ran out to where it had gotten stuck and picked it up with two hands. I now felt like I had contributed to our fishing success that day.We were all having fun. We had 8 or 9 fish. We found a stick and strung them across it and walked home.

We cooked up our fish that night, I think that was the first time I had ever tasted catfish because usually when we go fishing we would catch trout. We were excited and it was one of the best fishing days I ever had as a kid, just because my little trap worked.